Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  Bartlett, in dull dejection.— “No, I won’t look at it. If it were a radiant message from heaven, I don’t see how it could help me now.”

  Mrs. Wyatt.— “I’m afraid you’ve made a terrible mistake, James.”

  General Wyatt.— “Margaret! Don’t say that!”

  Mrs. Wyatt.— “Yes, it would have been better to show us this paper at once, — better than to keep us all these days in this terrible suffering.”

  General Wyatt.— “I was afraid of greater suffering for you both. I chose sorrow for Constance rather than the ignominy of knowing that she had set her heart on so base a scoundrel. When he crawled in the dust there before me, and whined for pity, I revolted from telling you or her how vile he was; the thought of it seemed to dishonour you; and I had hoped something, everything, from my girl’s self-respect, her obedience, her faith in me. I never dreamed that it must come to this.”

  Mrs. Wyatt, sadly shaking her head.— “I know how well you meant; but oh, it was a fatal mistake!”

  Constance, abandoning her refuge among the cushions, and coming forward to her father.— “No, mother, it was no mistake! I see now how wise and kind and merciful you have been, papa. You can never love me again, I’ve behaved so badly; but if you’ll let me, I will try to live my gratitude for your mercy at a time when the whole truth would have killed me. Oh, papa! What shall I say, what shall I do to show how sorry and ashamed I am? Let me go down on my knees to thank you.” Her father catches her to his heart, and fondly kisses her again and again. “I don’t deserve it, papa! You ought to hate me, and drive me from you, and never let me see you again.” She starts away from him as if to execute upon herself this terrible doom, when her eye falls upon the letter where she had thrown it on the floor. “To think how long I have been the fool, the slave of that — felon!” She stoops upon the paper with a hawk-like fierceness; she tears it into shreds, and strews the fragments about the room. “Oh, if I could only tear out of my heart all thoughts of him, all memory, all likeness!” In her wild scorn she has whirled unheedingly away toward Bartlett, whom, suddenly confronting, she apparently addresses in this aspiration; he opens wide his folded arms.

  Bartlett.— “And what would you do, then, with this extraordinary resemblance?” The closing circle of his arms involves her and clasps her to his heart, from which beneficent shelter she presently exiles herself a pace or two, and stands with either hand pressed against his breast while her eyes dwell with rapture on his face.

  Constance.— “Oh, you’re not like him, and you never were!”

  Bartlett, with light irony: “Ah?”

  Constance.— “If I had not been blind, blind, blind, I never could have seen the slightest similarity. Like him? Never!”

  Bartlett.— “Ah! Then perhaps the resemblance, which we have noticed from time to time, and which has been the cause of some annoyance and embarrassment all round, was simply a disguise which I had assumed for the time being to accomplish a purpose of my own?”

  Constance.— “Oh, don’t jest it away! It’s your soul that I see now, your true and brave and generous heart; and if you pardoned me for mistaking you a single moment for one who had neither soul nor heart, I could never look you in the face again!”

  Bartlett.— “You seem to be taking a good provisional glare at me beforehand, then, Miss Wyatt. I’ve never been so nearly looked out of countenance in my life. But you needn’t be afraid; I shall not pardon your crime.” Constance abruptly drops her head upon his breast, and again instantly repels herself.

  Constance.— “No, you must not if you could. But you can’t — you can’t care for me after hearing what I could say to my father” —

  Bartlett.— “That was in a moment of great excitement.”

  Constance.— “After hearing me rave about a man so unworthy of — any one — you cared for. No, your self-respect — everything — demands that you should cast me off.”

  Bartlett.— “It does. But I am inexorable, — you must have observed the trait before. In this case I will not yield even to my own colossal self-respect.” Earnestly: “Ah, Constance, do you think I could love you the less because your heart was too true to swerve even from a traitor till he was proved as false to honour as to you?” Lightly again: “Come, I like your fidelity to worthless people; I’m rather a deep and darkling villain myself.”

  Constance, devoutly.— “You? Oh, you are as nobly frank and open as — as — as papa!”

  Bartlett.— “No, Constance, you are wrong, for once. Hear my dreadful secret; I’m not what I seem, — the light and joyous creature I look, — I’m an emotional wreck. Three short years ago, I was frightfully jilted” — they all turn upon him in surprise— “by a young person who, I’m sorry to say, hasn’t yet consoled me by turning out a scamp.”

  Constance, drifting to his side with a radiant smile.— “Oh, I’m so glad.”

  Bartlett, with affected dryness.— “Are you? I didn’t know it was such a laughing matter. I was always disposed to take those things seriously.”

  Constance.— “Yes, yes! But don’t you see? It places us on more of an equality.” She looks at him with a smile of rapture and logic exquisitely compact.

  Bartlett.— “Does it? But you’re not half as happy as I am.”

  Constance.— “Oh yes, I am! Twice.”

  Bartlett.— “Then that makes us just even, for so am I.” They stand ridiculously blest, holding each other’s hand a moment, and then Constance, still clinging to one of his hands, goes and rests her other arm upon her mother’s shoulder.

  Constance.— “Mamma, how wretched I have made you, all these months!”

  Mrs. Wyatt.— “If your trouble’s over now, my child,” — she tenderly kisses her cheek,— “there’s no trouble for your mother in the world.”

  Constance.— “But I’m not happy, mamma. I can’t be happy, thinking how wickedly unhappy I’ve been. No, no! I had better go back to the old wretched state again; it’s all I’m fit for. I’m so ashamed of myself. Send him away!” She renews her hold upon his hand.

  Bartlett.— “Nothing of the kind. I was requested to remain here six weeks ago, by a young lady. Besides, this is a public house. Come, I haven’t finished the catalogue of my disagreeable qualities yet. I’m jealous. I want you to put that arm on my shoulder.” He gently effects the desired transfer, and then, chancing to look up, he discovers the Rev. Arthur Cummings on the threshold in the act of modestly retreating. He detains him with a great melodramatic start. “Hah! A clergyman! This is indeed ominous!”

  THE SLEEPING CAR

  I.

  SCENE: One side of a sleeping-car on the Boston and Albany Road. The curtains are drawn before most of the berths; from the hooks and rods hang hats, bonnets, bags, bandboxes, umbrellas, and other travelling gear; on the floor are boots of both sexes, set out for THE PORTER to black. THE PORTER is making up the beds in the upper and lower berths adjoining the seats on which a young mother, slender and pretty, with a baby asleep on the seat beside her, and a stout old lady, sit confronting each other — MRS. AGNES ROBERTS and her aunt MARY.

  MRS. ROBERTS. Do you always take down your back hair, aunty?

  AUNT MARY. No, never, child; at least not since I had such a fright about it once, coming on from New York. It’s all well enough to take down your back hair if it is yours; but if it isn’t, your head’s the best place for it. Now, as I buy mine of Madame Pierrot —

  MRS. ROBERTS. Don’t you wish she wouldn’t advertise it as human hair? It sounds so pokerish — like human flesh, you know.

  AUNT MARY. Why, she couldn’t call it inhuman hair, my dear.

  MRS. ROBERTS (thoughtfully). No — just hair.

  AUNT MARY. Then people might think it was for mattresses. But, as I was saying, I took it off that night, and tucked it safely away, as I supposed, in my pocket, and I slept sweetly till about midnight, when I happened to open my eyes, and saw something long and black crawl off my bed and slip under the berth. Such a
shriek as I gave, my dear! “A snake! a snake! oh, a snake!” And everybody began talking at once, and some of the gentlemen swearing, and the porter came running with the poker to kill it; and all the while it was that ridiculous switch of mine, that had worked out of my pocket. And glad enough I was to grab it up before anybody saw it, and say I must have been dreaming.

  MRS. ROBERTS. Why, aunty, how funny! How could you suppose a serpent could get on board a sleeping-car, of all places in the world!

  AUNT MARY. That was the perfect absurdity of it.

  THE PORTER. Berths ready now, ladies.

  MRS. ROBERTS (to THE PORTER, who walks away to the end of the car, and sits down near the door). Oh, thank you. Aunty, do you feel nervous the least bit?

  AUNT MARY. Nervous? No. Why?

  MRS. ROBERTS. Well, I don’t know. I suppose I’ve been worked up a little about meeting Willis, and wondering how he’ll look, and all. We can’t know each other, of course. It doesn’t stand to reason that if he’s been out there for twelve years, ever since I was a child, though we’ve corresponded regularly — at least I have — that he could recognize me; not at the first glance, you know. He’ll have a full beard; and then I’ve got married, and here’s the baby. Oh, no! he’ll never guess who it is in the world. Photographs really amount to nothing in such a case. I wish we were at home, and it was all over. I wish he had written some particulars, instead of telegraphing from Ogden, “Be with you on the 7 A.M., Wednesday.”

  AUNT MARY. Californians always telegraph, my dear; they never think of writing. It isn’t expensive enough, and it doesn’t make your blood run cold enough to get a letter, and so they send you one of those miserable yellow despatches whenever they can — those printed in a long string, if possible, so that you’ll be sure to die before you get to the end of it. I suppose your brother has fallen into all those ways, and says “reckon” and “ornary” and “which the same,” just like one of Mr. Bret Harte’s characters.

  MRS. ROBERTS. But it isn’t exactly our not knowing each other, aunty, that’s worrying me; that’s something that could be got over in time. What is simply driving me distracted is Willis and Edward meeting there when I’m away from home. Oh, how could I be away! and why couldn’t Willis have given us fair warning? I would have hurried from the ends of the earth to meet him. I don’t believe poor Edward ever saw a Californian; and he’s so quiet and preoccupied, I’m sure he’d never get on with Willis. And if Willis is the least loud, he wouldn’t like Edward. Not that I suppose he is loud; but I don’t believe he knows anything about literary men. But you can see, aunty, can’t you, how very anxious I must be? Don’t you see that I ought to have been there when Willis and Edward met, so as to — to — well, to break them to each other, don’t you know?

  AUNT MARY. Oh, you needn’t be troubled about that, Agnes. I dare say they’ve got on perfectly well together. Very likely they’re sitting down to the unwholesomest hot supper this instant that the ingenuity of man could invent.

  MRS. ROBERTS. Oh, do you think they are, aunty? Oh, if I could only believe they were sitting down to a hot supper together now, I should be so happy! They’d be sure to get on if they were. There’s nothing like eating to make men friendly with each other. Don’t you know, at receptions, how they never have anything to say to each other till the escalloped oysters and the chicken salad appear; and then how sweet they are as soon as they’ve helped the ladies to ice? Oh, thank you, thank you, aunty, for thinking of the hot supper. It’s such a relief to my mind! You can understand, can’t you, aunty dear, how anxious I must have been to have my only brother and my only — my husband — get on nicely together? My life would be a wreck, simply a wreck, if they didn’t. And Willis and I not having seen each other since I was a child makes it all the worse. I do hope they’re sitting down to a hot supper.

  AN ANGRY VOICE from the next berth but one. I wish people in sleeping-cars —

  A VOICE from the berth beyond that. You’re mistaken in your premises, sir. This is a waking-car. Ladies, go on, and oblige an eager listener.

  [Sensation, and smothered laughter from the other berths.]

  MRS. ROBERTS (after a space of terrified silence, in a loud whisper to her AUNT.) What horrid things! But now we really must go to bed. It was too bad to keep talking. I’d no idea my voice was getting so loud. Which berth will you have, aunty? I’d better take the upper one, because —

  AUNT MARY (whispering). No, no; I must take that, so that you can be with the baby below.

  MRS. ROBERTS. Oh, how good you are, Aunt Mary! It’s too bad; it is really. I can’t let you.

  AUNT MARY. Well, then, you must; that’s all. You know how that child tosses and kicks about in the night. You never can tell where his head’s going to be in the morning, but you’ll probably find it at the foot of the bed. I couldn’t sleep an instant, my dear, if I thought that boy was in the upper berth; for I’d be sure of his tumbling out over you. Here, let me lay him down. [She lays the baby in the lower berth.] There! Now get in, Agnes — do, and leave me to my struggle with the attraction of gravitation.

  MRS. ROBERTS. Oh, poor aunty, how will you ever manage it? I must help you up.

  AUNT MARY. No, my dear; don’t be foolish. But you may go and call the porter, if you like. I dare say he’s used to it.

  [MRS. ROBERTS goes and speak timidly to THE PORTER, who fails at first to understand, then smiles broadly, accepts a quarter with a duck of his head, and comes forward to AUNT MARY’S side.]

  MRS. ROBERTS. Had he better give you his hand to rest your foot in, while you spring up as if you were mounting horseback?

  AUNT MARY (with disdain). Spring! My dear, I haven’t sprung for a quarter of a century. I shall require every fibre in the man’s body. His hand, indeed! You get in first, Agnes.

  MRS. ROBERTS. I will, aunty dear; but —

  AUNT MARY (sternly). Agnes, do as I say. [MRS. ROBERTS crouches down on the lower berth.] I don’t choose that any member of my family shall witness my contortions. Don’t you look.

  MRS. ROBERTS. No, no, aunty.

  AUNT MARY. Now, porter, are you strong?

  PORTER. I used to be porter at a Saratoga hotel, and carried up de ladies’ trunks dere.

  AUNT MARY. Then you’ll do, I think. Now, then, your knee; now your back. There! And very handsomely done. Thanks.

  MRS. ROBERTS. Are you really in, Aunt Mary?

  AUNT MARY (dryly). Yes. Good-night.

  MRS. ROBERTS. Good-night, aunty. [After a pause of some minutes.] Aunty!

  AUNT MARY. Well, what?

  MRS. ROBERTS. Do you think it’s perfectly safe?

  [She rises in her berth, and looks up over the edge of the upper.]

  AUNT MARY. I suppose so. It’s a well-managed road. They’ve got the air-brake, I’ve heard, and the Miller platform, and all those horrid things. What makes you introduce such unpleasant subjects?

  MRS. ROBERTS. Oh, I don’t mean accidents. But, you know, when you turn, it does creak so awfully. I shouldn’t mind myself; but the baby —

  AUNT MARY. Why, child, do you think I’m going to break through? I couldn’t. I’m one of the lightest sleepers in the world.

  MRS. ROBERTS. Yes, I know you’re a light sleeper; but — but it doesn’t seem quite the same thing, somehow.

  AUNT MARY. But it is; it’s quite the same thing, and you can be perfectly easy in your mind, my dear. I should be quite as loth to break through as you would to have me. Good-night.

  MRS. ROBERTS. Yes; good-night, Aunty!

  AUNT MARY. Well?

  MRS. ROBERTS. You ought to just see him, how he’s lying. He’s a perfect log. Couldn’t you just bend over, and peep down at him a moment?

  AUNT MARY. Bend over! It would be the death of me. Good-night.

  MRS. ROBERTS. Good-night. Did you put the glass into my bag or yours? I feel so very thirsty, and I want to go and get some water. I’m sure I don’t know why I should be thirsty. Are you, Aunt Mary? Ah! here it is. Don’t disturb yourse
lf, aunty; I’ve found it. It was in my bag, just where I’d put it myself. But all this trouble about Willis has made me so fidgety that I don’t know where anything is. And now I don’t know how to manage about the baby while I go after the water. He’s sleeping soundly enough now; but if he should happen to get into one of his rolling moods, he might tumble out on to the floor. Never mind, aunty, I’ve thought of something. I’ll just barricade him with these bags and shawls. Now, old fellow, roll as much as you like. If you should happen to hear him stir, aunty, won’t you — aunty! Oh, dear! she’s asleep already; and what shall I do? [While MRS. ROBERTS continues talking, various notes of protest, profane and otherwise, make themselves heard from different berths.] I know. I’ll make a bold dash for the water, and be back in an instant, baby. Now, don’t you move, you little rogue. [She runs to the water-tank at the end of the car, and then back to her berth.] Now, baby, here’s mamma again. Are you all right, mamma’s own?

  [A shaggy head and bearded face are thrust from the curtains of the next berth.]

  THE STRANGER. Look here, ma’am. I don’t want to be disagreeable about this thing, and I hope you won’t take any offence; but the fact is, I’m half dead for want of sleep, and if you’ll only keep quiet now a little while, I’ll promise not to speak above my breath if ever I find you on a sleeping-car after you’ve come straight through from San Francisco, day and night, and not been able to get more than about a quarter of your usual allowance of rest — I will indeed.

  MRS. ROBERTS. I’m very sorry that I’ve disturbed you, and I’ll try to be more quiet. I didn’t suppose I was speaking so loud; but the cars keep up such a rattling that you never can tell how loud you are speaking. Did I understand you to say that you were from California?

  THE CALIFORNIAN. Yes, ma’am.

  MRS. ROBERTS. San Francisco?

  THE CALIFORNIAN. Yes, ma’am.

  MRS. ROBERTS. Thanks. It’s a terribly long journey, isn’t it? I know quite how to feel for you. I’ve a brother myself coming on. In fact we expected him before this. [She scans his face as sharply as the lamp-light will allow, and continues, after a brief hesitation.] It’s always such a silly question to ask a person, and I suppose San Francisco is a large place, with a great many people always coming and going, so that it would be only one chance in a thousand if you did.